OJ Update

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On Thursday, the AP reported that OJ Simpson did receive money directly for his participation in the aborted HarperCollins book and promptly spent it, "some of it on tax obligations." News Corp. has at least admitted how much they paid for the project--$880,000--but still won't identify the third party to which the money went. And the company persists in asserting that Simpson wasn't supposed to get any funds. But in a radio interview on Wednesday, Simpson laughed at the company's front: "Would everybody stop being so naive? Of course I got paid."
Simpson tells the AP he didn't confess at all, and denied committing the murders. He says the insipidly cynical title came from the publisher ("That was their title. That's what they came up with. I didn't pitch anything. I don't make book deals.") and "the hypothetical sections were written by his ghostwriter."

Simpson says: "I didn't do it. I made it clear I didn't do it. But I didn't doubt that Ms. Regan thought I did it." Apparently, he also told Harper he "would not allow publication if the book contained graphic descriptions of 'cutting or stabbing.'" Speaking about his ghostwriter, Simpson said: "When I saw what he wrote, I said, 'Maybe you did it because they're saying the chapter contains things only the killer would know. I don't know these things."

Both the Los Angeles Times and Jeffrey Toobin in the New Yorker's Talk of the Town have somewhat closer looks at the apparent writer, Pablo Fenjves.

In other reports, Variety says that "book rights to If I Did It have, according to several sources, reverted to the Simpson camp" (concurring with an anonymous News Corp. employee cited in the WSJ on Tuesday--which contrasts with attorney Yale Galanter's contention that the projected "belonged" to Harper).

Newsweek has a short item speculating on Judith Regan's fate. They note: "Regan only had to present a general concept of the Simpson book to HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman to get the budget approved for the project, according to one person close to Friedman who doesn't want to be identified because he's not authorized to speak for the company." And there is speculation in-house at Harper as to what these events mean for PW's planned designation of Friedman as their second "publishing person of the year."